When to bring in a recovery specialist
There is usually a moment when executives know a project is in trouble. Deadlines have moved more than once. The vendor relationship is strained. The sponsor is fielding awkward questions from the board. The delivery team is exhausted, defensive or quietly looking for the exit.
Adding more resources at this point rarely helps. What is missing is not capacity — it is clarity. Clear priorities. Clear decisions. Clear ownership. Clear governance. That is the work of project recovery.
How we recover projects
We follow a structured, executive-grade approach refined across more than fifteen years of leading complex programs in aviation, banking, financial services, insurance and infrastructure. The shape of every recovery is similar, even when the industry is not.
Stabilise
Within the first two weeks we establish an honest baseline. What is actually built. What is actually working. What is realistically deliverable. We pause unhelpful activity, reset cadence and restore confidence in what is being communicated upwards.
Reset governance
Most stuck projects have a governance problem disguised as a delivery problem. We rebuild steering and working forums so that decisions are made, escalations are heard, and accountability is restored without theatre.
Re-baseline credibly
We work with delivery, vendors and the sponsor to produce a credible plan that the team can stand behind and the board will trust. A re-baseline only works once. We make sure it is built on assumptions that hold.
Hand back stronger
Recovery is not extraction. We hand the program back to your internal leadership with stronger governance, clearer priorities and a delivery rhythm that does not depend on us.
What recovery looks like in practice
Most recovery engagements run for between eight and sixteen weeks. We work alongside your existing program manager, delivery lead or vendor — not over the top of them. The objective is to make the team you already have more successful, not to replace them.
Where the project genuinely cannot recover in its current shape, we say so early and help executives make a defensible decision to reshape, pause or stop. That conversation is uncomfortable. Avoiding it is more expensive.
Industries and contexts we work across
Core platform replacements. ERP and CRM programs. Digital transformation portfolios. Vendor-led implementations that have lost direction. Regulatory programs running against immovable deadlines. Post-acquisition integrations. AI and data programs that have outrun their operational readiness.
If you are sponsoring a program that is consuming a disproportionate amount of executive attention and producing diminishing returns, recovery is the conversation.